Back To Prabhupada, Issue 66, Vol 2, 2020
GBC-elected guru HH Bhakti Vikasa Swami ("BVKS") gave a lecture on 24/3/20 titled "Can There Be Cheating in Krsna Consciousness?", in which he himself cheated during the lecture! All quotes in the shaded boxes are taken from this lecture. Emphases added.
"The rtviks, rtvik vadis, another form of cheating, they present Srila Prabhupada as the founder and Acarya of ISKCON. What's wrong with that? [...] What's wrong is that Prabhupada didn't call himself the founder and Acarya"
BVKS refers here to the IRM through the use of the term "rtviks", and claims we are cheating by stating that Srila Prabhupada is the Founder and Acarya of ISKCON, since BVKS claims that Srila Prabhupada never referred to himself as the Founder and Acarya. However, as we showed in our book, Srila Prabhupada: The Founder-Acarya of ISKCON – Presenting the Conclusions of the GBC Foundational Document, Srila Prabhupada did call himself the Founder and Acarya, so the above is an outright lie:
"One of the signatures must be mine and the other names should also be registered: Jayapataka Swami, Acyutananda Swami and Madhudvisa Swami (Founder and Acarya, President, Secretary and Treasurer respectively.) These four names should be registered."
(Srila Prabhupada Letter, 27/11/70)
"which country I am registered immigrant as Founder and Acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Incorporated."
(A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Mayapur-Vrindaban Trust Fund Agreement, July, 1971)
"This is to certify that [...] and therefore authorized to deal with all lands and property possessed by ISKCON.
Sincerely,
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
Founder and Acarya, of International Society for Krishna Consciousness."
(Srila Prabhupada Letter, 21/4/74)
Thus, by rejecting Srila Prabhupada's statements, it is BVKS who is cheating.
BVKS is only able to prance around claiming he is a diksa guru in ISKCON today because after many years of waiting he was finally able in the 1990s to persuade the GBC to make him a diksa guru via being voted in by them. Thus, his position depends entirely on the GBC's authority, which, by claiming to be a GBC certified diksa guru and accepting being worshipped as such, BVKS fully accepts.
And the GBC, the very authority on which BVKS exists, itself states exactly what we say: that Srila Prabhupada's title is Founder – hyphen – Acarya, and this means being both the Founder and Acarya with the hyphen replacing the "and". Because Srila Prabhupada actually had two titles. He was both the Founder and Acarya of ISKCON, with each title having its own specific import and meaning:
"As Founder-Acarya Srila Prabhupada holds a unique position in ISKCON. We need to understand it deeply. As acarya, his exemplary personal behavior is the model and norm for all ISKCON devotees. As founder, his personal standards and principles of action, his particular spirit or ‘mood,' take on a societal shape and form in the organization he created."
("Srila Prabhupada: The Founder-Acarya of ISKCON", p. 30, GBC)
Thus, "Founder-Acarya" means "Founder" and "Acarya" since, as the GBC explains above, Srila Prabhupada is both the Founder and Acarya of ISKCON.
BVKS compounds the above cheating by adding the following lie:
"Prabhupada didn't call himself the founder and Acarya, he called himself the Founder – hyphen – Acarya. [...] Srila Prabhupada stated that the GBC should see that no one whimsically change the name ‘Founder-Acarya'. So they've changed it from Founder-Acarya to Founder and Acarya."
We have not changed the title from "Founder-Acarya" to "Founder and Acarya". We, and the GBC, have simply explained what the title means – which is that Srila Prabhupada is both the Founder and Acarya of ISKCON. And the simple proof for this is that:
1) There is nowhere we have replaced Srila Prabhupada's "Founder-Acarya" title with "Founder and Acarya".
2) Thus, everywhere, we still use the title "Founder-Acarya" – like for example on the inside cover of every BTP, including this issue!
When one needs to lie about what the IRM states, it means one cannot answer what we actually state, otherwise one would honestly address that, rather than one's made-up lie.
Referring to Srila Prabhupada, BVKS claims:
"in one talk in Mayapur he said. ‘In future', talking about his disciples, he wanted them all to initiate, that ‘in future there will be no shortage of acaryas'."
But we dealt with this recycled argument in BTP 62, "Guru Ambition Causes Vision Impairment". What Srila Prabhupada actually said in this Mayapur lecture was:
"Then, in future... Suppose you have got now ten thousand. We shall expand to hundred thousand. That is required. Then hundred thousand to million, and million to ten million. [...] So there will be no scarcity of acarya, and people will understand Krsna consciousness very easily."
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, Mayapur, 6/4/75)
Srila Prabhupada says that the ten million would be an expansion of the "ten thousand" which existed at the time. That "ten thousand" was the number of Srila Prabhupada's initiated disciples – as BVKS admits: "talking about his disciples". Therefore, Srila Prabhupada is speaking literally about expanding the number of his initiated disciples. He could not have been speaking about expanding the number of successor diksa gurus, because none of them existed at the time, and one cannot expand that which does not exist!
Ironically, BVKS states in his lecture when referring to the IRM:
"So there's some kind of cheating, misrepresenting Srila Prabhupada [...] they have altered what Prabhupada said to suit what they would like him to have said."
Yet we have shown that it is BVKS who has done exactly this – cheating by shamelessly lying about the statements of Srila Prabhupada and the IRM.
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